Dec 30, 2025 4 min read

When Bill Gates released his recent essay on climate change, the global climate community was shocked. This is the same Bill Gates who had been known for supporting synthetic beef, suggesting we stop flying and turning our backyards into solar farms. Suddenly, he is suggesting a more conservative approach to the problem.

Naturally, the internet went crazy with conspiracy theories about the “Epstein jet” because nothing says “climate discussion” in 2025 like a social media account accusing Bill Gates of secretly plotting world domination via seed patents and chips implanted with our COVID shots.

Gates’ essay is not climate denial, it is more like climate reprogramming. He hasn’t lost faith in science, but he has altered his views on how fast climate change can safely happen. His latest message is that saving the planet should not require starving poor people. He points out real-world disasters like Sri Lanka’s artificial fertilizer ban that starved farmers and spiked food prices at the same time. In other words, if your climate plan makes poor people poorer, it might be just a little too aggressive.

And here’s reality: In this case, he is right. Our current climate mission has become the same as eating an entire box of prunes at one sitting. It may have seemed like a good idea, but it became self-punishing. Gates is saying the secret part out loud. We need to think about the damage extremes on climate change are causing on both sides.

Of course, his newfound viewpoint set off a stream of crazy paranoia. Some corners of the internet are saying that Gates’ essay was composed by people who have erased the Epstein flight logs as payback. (Truthfully, those logs still exist.) According to the dark web, Gates’ shift from being an environmental zealot to expressing measured realism about this problem can only mean that someone is blackmailing him, but remember, he is still publicly investing billions in clean tech.

As of right now, there is no credible evidence of coercion. Remember, Epstein’s alleged blackmail attempt in 2017 flopped. It’s really hard for us to imagine that someone might actually evolve in the way they think about something.

Maybe we should give Gates a little credit for admitting that although “saving the planet” is critical, the path we take might need some intelligent alternatives. While we realize it is a huge challenge, politicians have made pledges no one intends to keep. Gates seems to be learning from experience. His Breakthrough Energy Ventures have shown him how hard energy transitions really are. His foundation’s work in global health has shown him what poverty is like, and real poverty doesn’t care about EV tax credits.

Meanwhile, Gates, the man who helped unleash AI on the world, now finds himself worrying about how much electricity it’s sucking out of the grid. The same data centers running our AI “climate solutions” are burning more fossil fuels than small countries. In other words, the robots writing climate models are helping melt the glaciers they’re forecasting. If irony could generate power, we’d have solved this problem years ago.

In the end, Gates’ essay feels like a confessional from a man who’s figured it out. The techno-optimist has become a techno-realist. He’s not giving up on progress. He is just trading in the apocalypse narrative for one that will take a little longer to get there. Now we are all hoping for innovation to help us out of this mess.

Whether you see that as wisdom or weakness depends on how you like your billionaires. Would you rather have them preachy or pragmatic? Either way, if civilization does end, it won’t be because Gates gave up on climate action. It’ll be because our AI overlords melted the poles training themselves and using power from the same fossil fuels we were trying to quit.

At least we’ll go out efficiently.

Nick Jacobs is a resident of Windber.